Zendesk, a customer service software and support ticket software provider, put together an infographic about the importance of loyalty rewards. The company says loyalty rewards are marketing tools that encourage people to become repeat customers (e.g., punch cards). But brands also need to focus on providing great products, services or customer service to foster loyalty. […]

Salesforce.com is heating up its battle with Oracle, adding 20 social analytics tools to its Marketing Cloud ecosystem. Among the tools added are Klout, LeadSift, Lymbix and Rapleaf. Marketing Cloud also includes acquisitions Radian6 and Buddy Media. Oracle, for its part, acquired Virtue, Collective Intellect and Involver. Along with the announcement of these additional social […]

Google+, whether you actually use it or not, has become a significant tool marketers can’t afford to ignore. With 250 million users and its role in search engine optimization, marketers should understand how they can leverage the social media channel for their campaigns. Here are five ways marketers can use Google+: 1) include keywords and […]

Yelp is making it clear that it won’t tolerate businesses trying to purchase good review for their pages on the local search and review site. Starting Thursday, the company began displaying prominent red-bordered pop-up boxes alerting users with this message: “We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business. We weren’t fooled, but […]

LocalVox, a New York City-based startup offering local, social and mobile marketing solutions to small and medium businesses (SMBs), just raised $7.4 million in a funding round led by Talus Holdings. “LocalVox plans to utilize the funding to bring their comprehensive, yet simple and affordable marketing solutions to new markets, further invest in product development […]

Google’s Q3 earnings report was leaked earlier than expected Thursday, an event that turned out to be a spoiler for a bad movie. The search giant pointed a finger at financial printer RR Donnelly for prematurely releasing a draft of its third-quarter financial results without authorization. On the second page of the report, the words […]

GetResponse, an email marketing solutions company, analyzed 21 million email messages sent from U.S. accounts during the first quarter of 2012 to find the most popular open and click-through times, along with recipients’ engagement times. The thesis that was tested: “sending times matter, and message results depend on reader engagement routines, not just a little […]

This continues our series profiling daily-deals companies. The purpose of these Q&A profiles is to give merchants, marketers and others in the industry a glimpse into what some deal providers out there are doing. These profiles are also meant to offer different outlooks on the future of the industry. This week we’re profiling Sharing Spree, […]

Pinterest is more of a go-to destination than Facebook is for shopping-related activities, according to a study from Bizrate Insights. The study found that 70 percent of Pinterest users use the visually driven social network to get inspiration on what to buy, compared with 17 percent of Facebook users. Meanwhile, 67 percent of Pinterest users […]

According to a survey of 3,434 MerchantCircle member merchants, conducted by Reply, 68.7 percent of respondents use Facebook’s free tools to promote their business, followed by Google+ with 49.2 percent, Twitter with 32.8 percent and other social media platforms with 19.1 percent. However, when it comes to paid services to promote their businesses, 74.3 percent […]